Tag: incentive

Spite is seriously undervalued as a force for whatever is is you want to do.

Somebody said you can’t lift 200 pounds?

Someone thought you needed their help with finding a date?

Someone doubted you could write 10 000 words in a day?

Spite, the feeling of “you don’t know my life”

It’s when you know you can do so much more than people think you can, and when the feeling of “I’ can ” overpowers anything anyone ever told you.

If you’ve managed to go trough life without the need of spite, I congratulate you. That is a feat in and of itself. But most of us have been told we can’t, or have felt like somebody told us we can’t.

The thing is… thats a gift. you feel that anger?

I’ve made a post about the glow that you get when you’re working with something that’s perfectly within your sphere of art, something you can relate to.

You shouldn’t be afraid to let your anger take place here. Of course unlimited anger isn’t good, but spite; Determination to see something trough no matter what people see in you. That’s a powerful source.

Be careful who you let get close enough to inspire spite in you. It’s a powerful emotion, and it can lead you to places you never thought you’d be.

Just be mindful of who you give the power to inspire spite in your life. And when they do, don’t let them off easy. Follow your spite, it will usually lead you to what you actually seek, and not the steps in between.

Don’t be apologetic about your spite. I dare say you have your reasons to be spiteful.

It’s difficult to get anything done. Especially if you don’t really have to. I spent so many years thinking of different stories, writing a chapter or perhaps a first act and then putting it down when the going gets tough.

Even now: I planned to work on my second draft this September and October, but this is September 6th, and I haven’t even started. I wrote the first draft during camp nanowrimo this summer, and it was all for that lovely little graph on my page. Each time It’s such a small thing, but it worked, I’m both delighted and ashamed to say. Is that really all that was needed? A visual aid?

I guess the key is that it is external, and it is what it is no matter what. If I have written 1000 words, I have written 1000 words. No more, no less. I think that gives me an anchor to reality. When writing you really have to get into your own head, and it is easy to get lost in there. Ideas that I’d rather write come from nowhere, I spend hours thinking of names for places or characters, and I fuss over details.

But having to keep a move on helps me get out of that rut. I can’t spend two hours on figuring out what this walk-on characters name is, I just have to call him Bob and keep going. But then September comes, and I realize that Bob isn’t a good name for this character. I don’t have much experience with revision, so I don’t really know how to find that carrot or stick to keep me moving.